Is Progress Going to Audit Your Licences? YES!

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. The information below may or may not be applicable in your environment.

How many of you have been through a licence audit recently? If you haven’t then expect it…and soon. Progress has relied on honour-based licensing for 30 years and now…well…maybe now they’re questioning your honour just a little bit!

Now before I go any further, let me state categorically that you should purchase all the licences that you use. Trying to cheat is just dumb. Are you really going to risk your business and reputation for a few thousand dollars?

Second statement: I have often heard comments similar to “they can’t do that!” or “that’s not legal!” Really? That’s your defense for being non-compliant? Please. The EULA and policy guide are 98% clear. If you’re going to argue at least do it intelligently.

Third statement: 95% of you need DR (disaster recovery) licences. See below for more details. If it takes you more than 30 seconds to explain why you don’t need DR licences then you’re just rationalizing.

With that said, if you get that phone call from Progress’ auditors, here is some practical advice from someone who has helped a fair number of clients with their audits. If you have not gotten the call yet then go through this little exercise yourself so that you can budget for and negotiate the price of your missing licences.

1. DO NOT LIE. That’s just dumb.

2. Ask for a copy of the EULA and policy guide right at the get-go and READ THEM! You need to fully understand to what your licences entitle you and you certainly cannot be expected to accept an assessment if you do not clearly understand what is being assessed.

3. Ask if the EULA and policy guide to which you are bound are the current ones or the ones in effect when you purchased (or upgraded) your licences. I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know the answer to this one. Make sure you are reading the correct document.

4. Before or after you submit all the log files and what-nots to Progress, do your own analysis. That way when Progress presents their assessment, you have something to which to compare it. You can’t argue that Progress’ assessment is incorrect if you haven’t done your homework.

5. The auditors are not always technical. There is at least one in Bedford who is and who I respect (you know who you are). Others I have dealt with did not understand the technology that they were auditing.

6. If you have CPU-based licences, each CORE is a CPU licence. You cannot buy one 10-core processor and use it with a 1-CPU Enterprise DB licence.

7. Last and most importantly: if you’re not 100% comfortable answering the auditor’s questions then call your trusted independentProgress adviser. Ask him how many audits he has been through. If you don’t get that warm and fuzzy feeling from his answer, call me. Yes I’m tooting my own horn here.

DR Licences

I have heard a lot of <insert impolite word> about DR licences and whether you need them or not. The answer is almost always yes unless you have named-user licences. There is only one DR strategy that does not require DR Progress licences: Restore or re-install Linux or Windows on a new server, re-install Progress, restore your database backups and roll forward AI files. AND there must be no intention to ever re-use the previous production server, whether physical or virtual. Therein lies the key differentiator: by scrapping the previous production server or VM you are permanently moving your production licences to a new server (like a migration). If you intend to fire up the original server again, then you need a DR licence. If you fire up a snapshot of the VM anywhere else but on the original physical server then you need DR licences.